Bob Romano
Bob Romano has owned a cabin in the Rangeley Lakes Region of western Maine for more than thirty years. In his latest book, The River King – A Fly-fishing Novel, the writer returns to this region of the country that has a rich sporting tradition. This is Bob’s fifth book set in western Maine. The tenth-anniversary edition of Shadows in the Stream, Bob’s book of essays about fly fishing, is often used by anglers as a guide to fishing the Rangeley Lakes Region.
Bob is also the author of the Rangeley Lakes trilogy that includes North of Easie, which won second place in the 2010 Outdoor Writer’s Best Book Contest. Romano’s essays and short stories have appeared in various anthologies, including Christmas in the Wild, Fresh Fiction for Fresh Water Fishing, and Wildbranch: An Anthology of Nature, Environmental, and Place-Based Writing. His most recent book, The River King is published by West River Media. More information about his books can be obtained by going to his website: forgottentrout.com.
Author Articles
A Matter of Time
I suppose it’s a matter of time. Time for Trish to pack away the winter decorations, time for her to clean the windows, and give our old house a good scrubbing. Time to bake the ham and a batch of cookies before Emily flies in from Texas to spend Easter with her parents. Time for me to stack the cordwood I’ve been splitting all winter. Time to evict the...
An Angler's Lament
I admit it. For me, it’s been about the fish, in particular, brook trout, the native char of western Maine’s Rangeley Lakes Region. Although that’s not how it started. I remember summer evenings on the bank of the Saddle River, a polluted stream located in suburban New Jersey. I’d be seated beside my father, a hard-working man of few words, who...
Morning Chores
It’s still dark as I dress, the sun reticent to rise on such a cold, gray morning. Trudging down the stairs and into the living room, I find the woodstove still warm. I’ve tucked a bright yellow, long-sleeve tee-shirt into my jeans. The jeans, a pair purchased from L.L. Bean the year before our college-age daughter was born, are lined with flannel...
There and Back Again
As a young man, I read Hemingway and Steinbeck, Harrison, and McGuane. Along the way, the fly-fishing raconteur, Richard Brautigan, brought tears to my eyes while the rabid environmentalist, Edward Abbey, had me raising my fists in outrage. I took to heart the words found in Practice of the Wild, the thought-provoking book written by Gary Snyder: “The...
The Way of the Fly
One of the pleasures of fishing with a fly is the knowledge that those of us who spend our time wading through streams and rivers are part of a rich sporting tradition. It's a heritage handed down through the centuries by our fellow brothers and sisters of the Angle. Interestingly, in an endeavor dominated by males, one of the first books written about fly...
A Two-Hearted Tradition Comes to Maine
Western Maine is a land of deep forests, mysterious bogs, and wide lakes, with moods that can change as quickly as a salmon slips a hook. Its rivers are unrestrained, as wild as the moose along their shores, with rapids willing to sweep an unsuspecting angler off his or her feet. Dark pools hold char, commonly known as brook trout, called speckled trout or...
Seasons by the Stream
The fall is a time for reflection. The leaves of the oaks remind me of the golden color of a brown trout’s belly, those of the maple trees, a brook trout’s spawning colors while the darker browns and tans sprinkled across our property bring to mind bamboo rods, my connection with the rivers and streams where these wild creatures live out their secret...
Belly Boating
Living here on the east coast, I spend the months of April, May, and the better part of June playing tag with wild trout, fish that require cold, clean water. By Father’s Day, this can become a problem here in the east where the weather becomes oppressive with high humidity and air temperatures in the nineties. It is a time when few self-respecting trout...
Benjamin Brady and the Brook Trout Bodhisattva
What you are about to read is a true story or at least as true as any fish story can be. Scheduled to leave the following Monday for Ireland where he was to fish for salmon while staying at Ashford Castle (the one-time home of the Guinness family) Benjamin Brady decided to spend a weekend at his family’s cabin. Built of rough-hewn logs by Benjamin’s...
Handmade Graphite Rods Inspired by Maine's Waterways
My wife and I have owned a seasonal camp in the Rangeley Lakes Region of western Maine for the better part of our adult lives. During that time, I’ve written a number of books set in this part of northern New England, a place where native brook trout remain eager to snap a fly from your tippet and landlocked salmon continue to dance across the surface of...
